


A Passage Of Hearts

by Pollyanna



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-08-23
Updated: 1999-08-23
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:45:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollyanna/pseuds/Pollyanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How much can be forgotten in 5000 years?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Passage Of Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the television program  
> "Highlander" are the creations and property of Rysher: Panzer/Davis and have been used without  
> permission. No copyright infringement is intended.

The sun had reluctantly retreated for the night but the wind still blew scorched from the desert. The waxen flowers in the garden below gave up their scent to appease the covetous heat. Methos stood on the balcony, soothed by the silent warmth. The stark simplicity of these empty wastes had always helped to focus his mind. Although this morning it had been three simple words: 'Stay with me.' that had set his mind in a turmoil and sent him scurrying to this old house. He should be trying to determine his reply to this gentlest of demands but instead his mind kept worrying away at a fragmentary memory.

Instead of the monochrome of this bleached landscape, the picture in his mind was full of colour. He seemed to be lying on his back, looking up into a startlingly blue sky. He was somewhere high up and could see hills of blue and purple surrounding him. Close at hand were scrubby bushes covered with thorns, and starred with yellow flowers. The drone of bees weighted the air and there was the sound of someone speaking, but he couldn't quite make out the words or recognise the voice. Then he was back on the balcony again, as he felt a presence behind him and heard the soft footsteps on the stone floor.

"I thought I would find you here." Hands rested gently on his shoulders and a kiss was offered to the curve of his neck; carefully judged to be a greeting without falling over the line into compulsion. The next words should have been: 'What are you thinking of?' but after the morning's request they held too much potential for disaster. So the hands left his shoulders and moved down to untie the cord at the bottom of his braid and then to unplait the hair until it lay loose on his shoulders. A familiar action to remind them both of the shared years. The silence yawned between them, until Methos had to answer the unspoken question to fill the emptiness. "I was trying to remember something. Or perhaps it was someone."

  


* * *

  


The voices were arguing. No, not arguing but that bickering that passed as flirting between them.

"Aren't the hills wonderful, Methos?"

"They looked just as wonderful from the valley, and if we'd stayed there I wouldn't have felt constrained to sacrifice a layer of skin to the gods of heaths and twisty paths."

"Feeling a little ironic today, are we?"

"Be thankful. Irony is the civilised form of flaying alive."

"I thought that was sarcasm?"

"Sarcasm is tearing limb from limb. Very similar to my experience with the thorn bushes."

"All this grumbling over a few scratches - all of which are completely gone now."

Since this was true and he was actually feeling the tranquillity of the surroundings sinking into him, Methos decided to ponder one of life's more important questions "Why is it that a bush cannot cover a hill without putting out thorns?"

"I think it has to do with longevity."

"I give you fair warning that any sentence containing the words old, tough and prickly is liable to your last."

"Not even if I add 'beautiful' to the list? And I find the yellow of the gorse very beautiful. Do you know the old saying, Methos 'when the gorse is out of flowers, kissing is out of season'? And the gorse is always in flower." Then the brilliance of the sun was eclipsed by a dark head and a generous mouth descended on his. Methos felt like the bees soaking up the sun and the nectar, or perhaps he was more akin to the flowers offering their treasure willingly to the usurpers. Whichever, he knew a deep contentment and when his companion paused to draw breath, he moaned and then cupped the back of the retreating head and pulled it down so their lips were joined again - ignoring the choked laughter at his greediness. Only when he was surfeit did he allow the kiss to end, and he smiled up at the dark figure that was half-sitting, half-leaning over him.

"So the gorse is always flowering?" His fingers trailed up and down his Adam's apple in a contemplative gesture. "Ergo you'll have to kiss me every day." He paused as if painstakingly checking a theory for any flaws before letting it come to an obvious conclusion. "In that case I can't see any reason to ever leave you. Can you, Highlander?"

The glitter of the sun was as nothing to the dazzled beauty of the stunned smile that was shining down on him. But his lover knew better than to crush the fragile structure of the moment with undying declarations of love, and answered lightly, "Uh, oh. I'm in trouble when you start calling me Highlander."

"Then perhaps you'd better kiss me again, Duncan."

  


* * *

  


"Duncan!"

"Duncan? Is that a human name?" asked Jun'mina. Methos turned and looked at him. In the moonlight the crystal green of his lover's eyes and the darker green of his hair were merely variations on grey and black, but there was still something about the placement of the features, and the bones too close to the skin that declared him as alien as the two moons in the black sky. Methos could remember no home, but sometimes he was struck breathless by how far he had travelled in ten thousand years.

"Yes. That was what, or rather who, I was trying to remember. An Immortal like me, his name was Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod." And with that invocation the Highlander was there complete in his memory, a living tapestry in brown and gold looking at him with a whimsical grin as if about to offer a teasing remark on old age and forgetfulness.

Jun'mina's forehead wrinkled as he tried to make sense of the human words. He had never heard them before but perceived that they had some mysterious influence which must be understood. This struggle for comprehension was a constant in their relationship, as they had moved from respect, to friendship, to love. Each step forward had come with the fear that this time the fragile bridge they had built between them would no longer support the weight of misunderstandings, sending them both into the void. He watched the two moons as he pondered. Little Brother endlessly chasing after Elder Sister in the ancient metaphor for perseverance.

"Ma'cloud. That is there twice. It was important."

"Yes. MacLeod was the name of his family and his people. He was brought up to be a leader of his people, as you are."

Even as Jun'mina realised he was being deflected, he bridled at the insult. "I am not a leader, but a servant."

"But where you lead, others follow in their service," said Methos, feathering a hand across his cheek to temper the slur with his touch as well as his words. "Ten years ago, my old friend Ba'tin asked me to speak to you, to turn you from declaring for the war party, knowing that if you spoke for peace then there would be many who would stand by your side."

Jun'mina shivered as the air chilled around them. "When Death comes close to you, is it not to show a mirror to your life? You sat with me in my house, serene and beautiful, drinking my wine, and speaking of such deeds of vileness that I felt my heart putrefying inside me. When I rose to speak in the Debate, I used only your words. My people could be resolute against the horrors of war, but not against the idea that they would be the ones committing those horrors." It was not only the cooling breeze that made him shiver as he remembered how close they had come to the devastation of their souls.

Then he almost laughed as he realised what a master of distraction Methos was, leading him through indignation and recalled terrors to his obsession - his people.

"Why were you thinking of Duncan Ma'cloud now?"

The answer, when it came, was straightforward. "I was with him for over a hundred years. We were lovers."

  


* * *

  


There had always been light. It seemed they chased the sun around the earth as they travelled to many lands. Candlelight glimmered as they laughingly reconstructed the good old days. Lamps pooled saffron circles as they sat together reading, listening to music, playing archaic games. Even the stark light of the gym had its own glory as it illuminated the beauty of golden skin moving in elegant exercise. He remembered a rare morning when he had woken first. A ray of sunlight crept up the bed to where hair tumbled over a sleeping face. When it reached the face a hand came up with a grumble to brush back the tangle and eyes squinted open and then gleamed with their own inner light as his lover realised he was being watched.

Like a man searching for handholds as he slid down a rock face, Methos tried to remember the dark times in their long intimacy. His conscious mind knew there had been many. They were two stubborn men with diametrically opposed viewpoints on the world, immortality and love. He tried to grasp at brooding silences, scathing words, the acid bile of suppressed rage, the too-easy give and take of contempt and revulsion, but they were as difficult to recall as rainy days in long ago summers. His mind tumbled towards the one grey dawn which overshadowed all the other sorrows. It had not been grey; the loft had been bathed with the mellow light of autumn. He had been lying sprawled under the quilt wondering if Duncan had gone out to get something, or for a run, or any of the other myriad things that launched him from their bed in the morning. Methos reached out along the echo of the double Quickening that still connected them. The subtle link seemed disturbed. He sat up and saw the open sword case on the coffee table and that was the only warning he had before his soul was torn asunder.

  


* * *

  


Jun'mina brushed the tears from his lover's cheeks, before asking gently, "He was a great love for you?"

"And a dear friend."

"Ah," said Jun'mina, placing his hand on Methos' chest, "so he took your heart entire."

"Yes," acknowledged Methos, yet managed a pale smile, "but he was always most generous and gave me his own in its place. I think that is how I managed to go on living. When he died, I cared nothing for revenge. I wanted to die. I sought out an old and bitter enemy of mine and knelt before her asking her to kill me, but she refused. She said that my living would be her revenge for all I had done to her. She stayed with me for many years, making sure I did not seek my own death, persuading other Immortals not to challenge me. She had loved Duncan too, and we began to speak of him to each other - keeping him alive in our memories. Somehow, over the centuries, the hate and the pain passed, and we became friends - the kind of irony Duncan would have appreciated." His voice broke into a keen of utter misery, "Oh, Duncan. How could I have forgotten you?"

Jun'mina swiftly stepped forward and enveloped him in his embrace, protecting him from the cold, empty darkness. "Shhh, shhh. It was only your mind that forgot him, your heart holds him close still," he soothed, rocking the shaking body in the circle of his arms. He tried to think of words to salve the unanticipated grief, and could only proffer his own words of love.

"I stood in awe of you when I first met you. When my ancestors first came here, you had already walked on your earth for two thousand of your years. It seemed that you had lived forever. Of course you were separate from all mortals, deep with the wisdom of the ages, moving amongst us untouched by any of the trivial experiences that made up our lives. Then one day we were walking together in the gardens of my house. I was, of course, hanging on your every word, and you stopped and turned back to smell the blossom on a tree. You pulled down a branch to better appreciate the scent and a deluge of petals fell on you. You stood there laughing, covered in flowers and suddenly you were in my world and I could love you at last."

"I do love you, Jun'mina." The voice was a little hoarse but it spoke without hesitation.

Jun'mina leaned back from the embrace, gently tilted Methos' chin and placed a tender kiss upon his lips. "Will you remember me?"

"I do not know," sighed Methos, the rueful burden of the years echoing in his voice.

"Can you stay with me for the rest of my days?"

"I am not sure."

Jun'mina looked up into the sky at Little Brother. He knew how the tiny moon felt, but each night Little Brother tried again, and the old stories always called him 'great-hearted Little Brother'. That was why the old stories were still told, they carried the truths of life in them. Now it was time for him to learn from the stories and be great-hearted in his turn.

"Will you stay tonight?"

"Yes. That I can give you freely."

"Then I will be content. For tonight will I not hold eternity within my arms?"

**THE END**


End file.
